Now Borum's vision might come to pass. On Tuesday night, the York County Board of Supervisors amended the county's zoning ordinance so Borum can build Natasha House, a home that could house up to five women and their children.

The home would be built behind Faith for Living World Outreach Center on Goodwin Neck Road. Borum is the pastor of the nondenominational church.

Men would not be allowed to live in the home, and it might not accept battered women because of security concerns, said Marian Carrington, a grant writer who is working with Borum to try to raise $1 million for the shelter. Carrington said women who use drugs also will not be allowed at the shelter.

The home is not supposed to be an emergency shelter, Carrington said. Instead, it will allow low-income women to live there for up to 24 months until they get their finances in order. For some, that could include buying their first home, she said.

Borum grew up in a poor Baptist family in Mathews County. She competed with her 10 siblings for attention. She managed to graduate salutatorian at her school and got a scholarship to Virginia State College. She lost her scholarship when she failed to keep a B-average, and her family couldn't afford her college education. She left school.

Later, she married and had two children.

In 1973, Borum was studying elementary education at Christopher Newport College, where she had been enrolled part time for 10 years. She was about to enter what would have been her final year before graduation.

Borum was home, smoking a cigarette while her children ate lunch. They did not know she smoked, so when she heard one of them coming, she put out the cigarette and rushed toward the kitchen. That's when she struck her foot on a couch leg and broke her small toe. The doctor told her to stay off her foot for a month.

That night, her husband, George, carried her to Pizza Hut so they could celebrate their daughter's eleventh birthday. But the broken toe meant Borum could not remain in school.

"I was lying in bed, I put on a gospel record, and I just began to weep before the Lord," Borum said.

That night, Borum said, God healed her foot and told her to preach the gospel. Borum, her husband and their children drove to Borum's mother's home in Mathews, where Borum preached her first sermon to family members that night.

Borum's struggle to be ordained so she could preach the gospel took nearly a decade. The pastor at her church didn't believe women should be ordained. Borum went to other churches and wound up at First Baptist Denbigh, where she was ordained in 1982. She formed Faith for Living World in 1984.

And there were other struggles along the way. Borum's 16-year-old daughter got pregnant. Borum ended up raising her granddaughter after she was born. Her name was Natasha.

In 2001, Borum drove her Chrysler New Yorker into another car. Borum said she asked God why he let that happen. God told her to build the home for women and later told her to name it after her granddaughter, Borum said.

But York County's zoning law wouldn't allow the home. When the law was amended in 1995, the wording changed to language that would have allowed the transitional home.

On Tuesday, York County supervisors amended the zoning law to allow transitional homes. When Borum is ready, she'll have to go back to the county and ask for a special use permit.

First, the pastor and her staff need to raise up to $1 million. So far, they have $6,000, but Borum said she is confident she'll get the rest and could open the home in as little as a year. After all, she said, God is on her side.

"That's what sustained me," Borum said. "Nothing can take that away."

Christopher Schnaars can be reached at 247-4768 or by e- mail at cschnaars@dailypress.com